O'Toole, lesson 5

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Title: Shaping the Earth through Mechanical Weathering
Summary: This lesson is adapted from one that is called Breaking it Down, which is available on the PBS.org website. The students will have background information about the rock and water cycles which will aid in their learning of this lesson. In the start of the lesson the whole class will play an interactive game which will aid in grasping their interest and attention and will activate some of their prior knowledge. I will use a miniature demonstration to captivate the students attention and get them thinking about what mechanical weathering is. The student will then complete a guided organizer in pairs on an interactive website which provides the students with explanations about mechanical weathering and the different processes involved and which provides nice visuals so the students can see what they are reading and writing about.

Objectives:
  • Students will be able to describe mechanical weathering
  • Students will examine through mechanical weathering through an antacid demonstration.
  • Students will understand the concept of frost wedging and wedging cause by vegetation.
  • Students will understand exfoliation
  • Students will understand thermal expansion and contraction
  • Students will understand what crystal growth is and how it relates to mechanical weathering.
  • Students will understand the concept of abrasion.


Materials:
Instruction:
Opening:
  • Pull up the interactive game, "Shape it up", on the computer and go through about 10 scenarios with the students. For each scenario ask the students what conditions do they think will combine to create the desired landscape. Have the class as a whole vote on what the answers should be.
  • After the class has gone through about 10 scenarios explain to the class that what they were witnessing was erosion of the Earth's surface through mechanical and chemical weathering.
  • Put about five or six antacid tablets on the table top in the front of the room and without explaining what you are doing yet, smash them with the hammer.( attention grabber for mechanical weathering)
  • to transition explain what you did, making connections to erosion and weathering to form sediment from the rock cycle.
  • make sure to emphasize that in order for the erosion to occur the rock has to be broken down and the process of breaking down the rock is accomplished through mechanical and chemical weathering
  • timing = 10 minutes
Middle
Closing
  • Go through the organizer with the students having them make corrections as they go along.
  • Have the students give the answers and only make clarifications when needed.
  • Briefly explain that the following class you will be talking about another type of weathering called chemical weathering and will make comparisons to mechanical weathering.
  • Explain to students that they will learn about chemical weathering from the same webiste they navigated today and that the material on chemical weathering can be found just after the information on mechanical weathering on the same website.
  • Pass out chemical weathering organizer.
  • Have the students write down in their planners to review mechanical weathering and use the same website they navigated today to explore chemical weathering. Instruct the students to complete the chemical weathering organizer.
    Chemical Weathering Organizer I.docx
  • Inform them that they will be discussing the topics of chemical weathering in their next class.
  • Timing = 15 minutes


Notes:

Accommodation:
  • Notes on chemical weathering and mechanical weathering will be provided for those students whom require reading and/or organizational supports.